Dear Suzanne:

I will retell your story my way, using quotes from your original post: you are 21, and at this point your mother is 50 and your father is 66. You shared this: “I hardly think about my mom, and fixate too much on my dad”.

You’ve been fixated on your father, specifically on the fact that he’s been hiding and lying to you about having been married five or six times before he married your mother, instead of being upfront with you about it. You don’t trust him (“If my dad keeps this in the dark, he most certainly keeps many other things in the dark”), and you are angry at him (“revenge fantasy.. so that I can ‘get back’ at my dad.. Should I forgive my dad?)

You shared that you found out that your father was previously married when you were 14, seven years ago, when you woke up at night and heard him mention his ex wives. The next day, “I felt numb and was really quiet. But doubt they noticed any changes as I’m usually quiet”.

You shared that in your interactions with your father, you “project this image of being ‘daddy’s girl’, someone who just adores him”,  that you’ve been attracted to older, or older and broken men, since you were 14, that older men represent to you “A ‘second chance’ to love and care for someone again. To forgive someone for their past failed relationships, to be a daughter and a lover “.  Your fantasy is to marry such a man, so that “he will love me wholly, despite my feelings of hurt. And he’ll never abandon me. That’s my ultimate fantasy.. I want to be the perfect, ‘obedient’ daughter to  the man I’m in a relationship with… losing my virginity to this perfect father figure”.

My understanding at this point, based on the information you provided: you have been fixated on what you heard that night when you were 14 because by that night you were a very lonely, “real quiet… usually quiet” girl who did not receive the attention and love that you needed from either one of your parents, and when you reached out to your parents with love, they rejected you, emotionally abandoning you. If you were a loved child that night, at 14, what you heard would puzzle you, but not alarm you, causing you a seven years fixation.

The reason it was so alarming  to you, and the reason you fixated on it,  is that you grabbed what you heard as The Reason why you are not loved. And so, you figured: the solution is that I another older man who will “love me wholly.. never abandon me”, who will be your “‘second chance’ to love and care for someone again”, a man who will accept and appreciate your love for him.

Maybe your mother was busy otherwise, maybe she was clingy and demanded too much of your attention, but you don’t fixate or focus on her because you feel that you have a better chance to get the love that you need from your father. It is more difficult for you to perceive that your mother can love you, so you focus and fixate on your father.

Is any of my understanding correct?

anita